Stratagem
by Late2SGA
Summary: Sheppard is uneasy that something is afoot when the Team heads to a barren world to check out a rumor about an old enemy... Takes place late S5, before Vegas. Team fic.


~ Stratagem ~

An Author's Note follows the story.

Word Count: 3959

Characters: Sheppard, Rodney, Teyla, Ronon and some Woolsey.

Disclaimer: 'Stargate Atlantis' and its characters are not mine. I would not have left them under the aegis of those whose interest lay elsewhere.

SGA ~ SGA ~ SGA

"Just as I said ~ it's a dustball."

John Sheppard ignored Rodney's declaration and guided the Jumper upward for a slow, circular flight in front of the Gate.

McKay continued, "And I don't see why we have to be here."

"We went over this at the briefing," Ronon growled.

"We are here because of Michael," Teyla added.

"I meant to say, 'Why do _we_ have to be here?' There's no reason the lead team has to be the one to check out some spurious rumor. Michael's dead," Rodney stated flatly.

John slanted his head to glance sidewise at McKay, but he said nothing before returning his attention to the landscape.

"What!" Rodney demanded defensively. "I thought you were kidding earlier. You really think it could have been a clone that fell from the tower?" He directed his question at Teyla.

"We cannot be certain," Teyla admitted.

John continued his scrutiny of the terrain without comment. The land unfolding before the Gate was flat and fairly smooth, like a dry wash. The wind had ordered the soil in successive waves, making small, parallel lines in the dust. Outside of the wash the surrounding ground had more texture ~ rough rises and rocky slopes. The horizon had the staged look of a painted studio backdrop ~ multiple conical, smoking volcanoes amid endless brown dirt and boulders. The bleakness was eerie. There was no sign of thriving life, no indication of human trespass.

"We haven't heard a whisper about anything-Michael since his failed takeover," Rodney argued. "He's dead. This is a waste of our time. All his followers probably disbanded."

"Then they are still out there," Teyla countered. "This _whisper_ is about someone using Michael's network. Someone may have assumed control of the organization he left behind."

"His followers probably fell apart without continuing medical treatment," Rodney muttered. "And _we_ still don't have to be the ones to make contact. Why did we have to come so early?"

John lowered the Jumper, gliding nose-down to have a closer view of the barren ground ~ miles of nothing but harsh earth and desolation. The back of John's neck itched. He'd had reservations about the meeting, but if there was the smallest chance that someone was continuing Michael's work, they had to know. Still, he'd cloaked the Jumper on arrival ~ just in case.

"Why couldn't we meet in a nice restaurant, or at least someplace with running water and shade?" Rodney complained.

"This assures the informant of privacy," Teyla responded.

There were other reasons, John thought, and he looked over his shoulder to meet Ronon's gaze.

"So, for privacy we're sharing space with dust bunnies? There are no significant life signs on this orb." Rodney pushed buttons on the console and studied his laptop. "Okay for a BYOP party ~ Bring Your Own Pool. Air is slightly thinner than Earth, and hot." He called up the HUD. "There's a network of lakes around us. And they're round. Some are quite deep, possibly filled craters of extinct volcanoes. Or, there could've been multiple meteor impacts. Either could explain a Gate on what is a mostly barren world. I could do further geological investigation, if anyone's interested." He looked questioningly at his audience, then finally focused his gaze out the Jumper window. "Why am I expecting stop-motion dinosaurs from the 1950s? Or Robbie the Robot..."

The Jumper was almost opposite the Gate, halfway through the recon circle. A complex web of ridges in the soil of the dry wash was visible from the new vantage point. John pulled hard at the controls while mentally signaling a steep ascent-

"What are you doing?!" Rodney squawked.

John made a sharp turn in the direction of the Gate. He concentrated on speed while ordering, "Rodney, dial the Gate!"

"What? What about the meeting?"

"Just do it!"

Rodney tapped two icons, but- "Incoming wormhole!"

"Damn." John wasn't taking chances. He took the Jumper into a vertical climb to be far, far away from whatever force was going to arrive through the Gate. He channeled his mental effort into the inertial dampeners and urged speed from the little ship as they headed up through layers of cloudless sky.

"We're being tracked!" Rodney exclaimed in disbelief.

"While we're cloaked?" John asked aloud, and silently hoped the situation wouldn't get any worse.

"There's a signal coming from the surface," Rodney reported, typing keys on his laptop. "It wasn't there when we arrived. I don't think it's tracking as much as we triggered a warning." He typed more keys. "It's scanning. More like broadcasting and receiving an indication something's there. Like a bat. Sort of."

"How is that possible if we are cloaked?" Teyla inquired.

"I don't know. They can't pinpoint us, but they know we're here. And just so you know, there's a lot of equipment and people coming through the Gate." Rodney hit a console button in response to an alarm. "Detecting hyperspace window!"

John figured the situation had just gotten worse. "Wraith?"

"No. We've never seen this hyperspace signature."

Much worse. John made another sharp turn, swinging the Jumper back around, weighing speed and angle of descent as he disengaged the cloak. He checked the HUD and targeted a heading behind the Gate, away from the arriving throng. At that altitude he could see a half-dozen dark-blue, rough circles.

Rodney was tapping buttons on his scanner, his laptop and the ship's console. "It's about the size of a Cruiser."

"Your evil Asgard friends?"

Rodney had time to glare at John before the alarm beeped again. "There's another hyperspace window!" Rodney typed on his laptop and checked the console. "It's a different signature." He looked up. "And we've never seen this one before, either."

John gripped the controls and spoke over his shoulder. "Ronon, I need a lotta smoke and the largest debris field you can manage. Have Teyla help you. Everything but the weapons." John saw Rodney's mouth open in a silent question as the man's gaze followed his teammates' transfer to the rear.

McKay turned forward and his mouth opened wider in shock at the first volley. "They're shooting at us!"

"Don't worry about it." John observed the alien ships' positions on the HUD and marked the pattern of weapons fire as he guided the Jumper around the blasts.

"Don't worry about it?" Rodney parroted in disbelief. "Exactly when do you think would be a good time to-"

"McKay!" John commanded in a stern voice. "I need you to alter the cloak. I don't want the entire ship hidden, just sections."

"Cloak. Right. Cloak. Why don't we just re-cloak?"

"And then what? They know we're here, Rodney. They can sit on the Gate and wait until we dial out. I don't want Atlantis sending another Jumper, so find a way to cloak the open hatch with some of the rear compartment, then most of the cockpit."

"Open hatch?" Rodney asked for clarification and jerked as an explosion occurred just beyond the Jumper window. "At least cloaking will keep us temporarily from being killed!"

"They're not trying to kill us." John's retort was accompanied by another explosion behind them that rocked the Jumper.

"They want us alive?" McKay squeaked.

"They don't want us at all."

"What?!" Rodney yelped.

"McKay, focus!" John kept his eyes on the HUD. The two ships were trying to herd him, firing around him. He had the maneuverability and was dodging their fire, but he was running out of time. And timing was everything. He looked back to see Ronon had spread the cargo net on the floor and was in the process of dismantling the benches. Teyla was hastily opening bins and emptying contents onto a growing pile on the open net. "Ronon!" John called. "How soon?"

"I just need to secure the packet," came the reply.

Teyla entered the cockpit carrying the extra handguns. She removed the clips, then she sat down and took off her boots and jacket and threw it all to Ronon.

"Nice touch," John commented, and she smiled.

"I assume you don't want them to see when the hatch is open," Rodney said as he typed on his laptop. He touched the screen. "I can configure the cloak to hide the ramp and let's say a meter-" He looked up in question, then flinched when a too-near blast shook the Jumper. "...of the rear compartment floor and some ceiling." At John's nod Rodney went back to typing. "I'll leave the upper structure of the cockpit ~ Conan will have to sit on the floor ~ and the lower portion will be cloaked. Okay?"

John nodded again as he eyed the HUD, watching the ships' firing sequence as they tried, in concert, to funnel him down to those waiting near the Gate. The Jumper was weaving in and out, left and right, but John was careful, ultimately, to maintain his scheduled descent. The trick was not to tip his hand by giving wide berth to the ground forces and overshooting the Gate.

"Burn is started," Ronon called. He backed into the cockpit, gripping his blaster in one hand and a flare gun in the other.

John was counting silently, clocking the barrage pattern, monitoring the altitude. He was calculating, keeping the Jumper path back-and-forth. He smelled the smoke. "Rodney? Cloak the hatch on 'Go'." John never took his eyes off the HUD. In and out. Back and forth. Steady descent. Mind the altitude. Timing had to be-

The explosion erupted just outside the hull and John hit the hatch release, shouting, "Go!" as the Jumper rocked and started to spin sidewise. The acrid odor abated in a noisy swirl of wind. The little ship wobbled and John held the controls and concentrated on the mental link and what he wanted the Jumper to do.

They were spinning slowly, falling slowly, smoke was an obscuring blanket around them. John fought the stabilizing and gripped the yoke and the Jumper shuddered and continued to spin wobbily, nose slightly down and still maintaining the chosen trajectory. Teyla had her back to the bulkhead and her hand on the door control. Ronon watched the rear compartment.

John focused on the rotating view in the window ~ earth and sky. He said, "Rodney, the cockpit on 'Go'," then "Ronon?"

Ronon backed up to the bulkhead and slid to the floor. He leaned around the door frame and aimed both his weapons at the burning bundle fixed to the open hatch. He nodded at Teyla, said, "Ready," and they all waited until John yelled, "Go!"

The blaster discharged and the flare burst, the bulkhead door slammed shut, closing off the explosion, and the Jumper shot forward, arcing in a rough downward spiral.

"What was that?" Rodney cried in alarm.

Ronon set his wrists on his knees. "We just blew up. Flares, gunpowder...and those bench cushions really go," he smiled.

John was still fighting to make a bumpy roll, willing the Jumper to follow his lead. He requested additional HUD data and subtly adjusted the Jumper's angle of descent toward the dark blue plane. He focused on the data; motion sickness was possible from visual cues, even without a gravitational element.

"Should I mention that carnival rides and I don't get along and I've been known to lose my lunch?" Rodney asked breathily.

"You do that here, McKay, and you won't remember the rest of this particular ride," Ronon promised.

"It is all in your mind, Rodney," Teyla soothed. "Remember the inertial dampeners. Close your eyes. Perhaps that will help."

"Where are we going?" Rodney puffed with his eyes closed.

"One of those lakes you mentioned. A deep one."

Rodney's eyes flew open in a glare. "This is a spaceship, Sheppard, not a submarine!" he snapped.

"I closed the rear hatch." John directed his mastery at the inertial dampeners and warned, "Brace for impact!"

The Jumper spiraled through the calm surface and they all lurched forward. John kept his eye on the HUD. He relaxed his rigid control and glided the Jumper smoothly to a suitable site. "And…we're good." The little ship settled on the ledge and John fully engaged the cloak. "That oughtta look like we sank to the bottom." He blew out his breath and looked around the cockpit. "Everybody okay?" He received nods from Teyla and Ronon, who stood and stretched and eased himself into his seat, but McKay could never keep it simple.

"What is going on?!" Rodney shouted.

"Quiet!" John warned. "I don't think they can hear us..." He tuned a dial on the instrument board. "...but they're searching."

Rodney immediately hunched over his laptop. "It's more of that bat-scan, and it's not very accurate. It won't pick up sound. I think what they actually can detect is 'change', like shifts in air or water currents." He looked at the HUD and reached for a button to zoom the display. "The ships are hovering over the lake, bat-scanning, but the people on land are milling about like confused ants." He looked at John. "What is going on?"

John responded with an order. "Set up an innocuous white-noise broadcast. If these guys overhear it, whatever technology they do have, I'm pretty sure they won't recognize Morse Code." He grinned. "I'll bet Chuck'll get a kick out of it."

McKay folded his arms in an attitude of stubborn resistance. "What. Is. Going. On?" he persisted.

"They want the Jumper, Rodney. It's why they chose this planet; they knew we'd bring a Jumper." John flipped switches on the console. "We're isolated. A lot of prep work went into this operation. They sanitized evidence of their presence, but I saw the outline of the net they had hidden in the wash."

"The wash? In front of the Gate? We bypassed it with your recon circle. Wait- They intended to catch us in a net?" Rodney asked incredulously. "There's everything wrong with that plan."

"They clearly have no intel on Jumper capability."

"Then why would they want one? They have their own ships with hyperspace technology."

"It's not their technology." Ronon entered the discussion.

John turned in his seat. "Who are they?"

"Pirates," Ronon answered succinctly.

Teyla looked at Ronon, then at John. "Pirates are...devils, fiends. They are as bad as the Wraith, but...they are legends, tales of evil humans in ships, stories told to frighten children. I have heard of them all my life, but they cannot be real."

Ronon eyed Teyla steadily. "You'd heard of Runners all your life..." He turned back to John. "They take what they want. The ships are stolen. So's the technology. They're thieves for hire. And worse. They'll kill for pleasure, not just profit."

"For a world to use its technology to hide only itself from the Wraith is one thing, but human technology being used for such a dreadful purpose..." Teyla shook her head. "If the stories are true, they are the worst criminals from various societies. They prey on humans as surely as the Wraith. They are monsters."

"I'm reading at least four different energy signatures on board and we've never seen any of them," Rodney announced as he perused the data on his computer screen. "Two different hyperdrives and there's more than one type of weapon." He looked up. "If we could locate the various worlds from which the technologies were acquired, we could learn from the original designers."

"The advanced worlds out there obviously don't wanna be found," John drawled. "As for these guys," and he adjusted the HUD to observe the life signs on the debris field, "I don't think they'd tell us where they 'acquired' anything."

Rodney touched his laptop screen and huffed. "Both ships are in need of repair; each has several sections not in use." He typed, and touched the screen again. "Looks like they're running a lot of their systems on portable power sources, like generators. You could have taken them both out with a couple drones."

"I don't want them to have any idea what a Jumper can do."

"You know," Rodney mused, "the Travelers know how to keep their fleet running, but maybe these guys need a new ship."

"A Jumper is not big enough to be living space," Teyla said.

John nodded. "Which brings us back to infiltrating Atlantis."

"Michael's people may try again?" Rodney asked and didn't wait for an answer. He finished typing and closed his laptop. "Okay, there's your white noise. Now what do we do?"

"We wait," John replied. "We let 'em think we're dead in the water and no rescue is coming." He checked his watch. "This mission was supposed to be in-and-out. When we miss check-in ~ fairly soon, Atlantis will dial out. We'll tell them to dial back two more times, one-hour intervals, then stop all contact."

"And the Pirates of Pegazance will go away?"

"Eventually," John answered absently as he studied the HUD and made adjustments on the console.

"How long is 'eventually'?" Rodney asked suspiciously.

"Hmm? Five or six hours. Maybe ten."

Rodney's jaw dropped open in fear and fury. "Ten hours?! You incinerated my emergency stash of energy bars!"

SGA ~ SGA ~ SGA

Rodney'd been talking since they left the Jumper bay. The team had split up to make personal pit stops and Teyla had gone to check on Torren, but McKay started talking again when they met outside the briefing room, where Richard Woolsey was waiting. John brought up the rear, smiling inwardly at Woolsey's attention to certain social niceties ~ refreshment trays sat on the conference table. John poured himself coffee and a glass of water.

"You realize we'll have to increase security before we meet any more snitches in dark alleys." Rodney stacked sandwiches on a plate. "In case they've learned what a Jumper can do in terms of access to the city." He added more items to his plate like a man starving, not someone who had only missed lunch.

"How would they learn?" Ronon asked around a mouthful of cookie. "People think a Jumper's just a ship."

"Well, yes," Rodney conceded, "but if they suspect the connection between Jumpers and Atlantis, they could use the connection to trick their way into the city, like Michael."

"Michael had previous knowledge of Atlantis and he was a scientist in his own right," Teyla countered. She set her mug of tea on the table as she pulled out a chair. "He had labs of Wraith technology and every advancement the pirates do not."

"My point is," Rodney persevered, "anyone in control of a Jumper can access information that could be used against us."

"Could they study, possibly even reverse-engineer something from the debris?" Woolsey inquired.

Ronon declared, "It won't help them. Most of it was from Earth. We kept the weapons and nothing else is useful."

"What are you thinking, Colonel?" Woolsey looked closely at John, who was the only one not involved in the discussion.

John leaned forward in his chair to set his coffee cup on the table. He threaded his fingers and placed his thumbs together. "Genii." John saw McKay's eyes narrow as he chewed, but no one at the table contradicted John's assertion.

Woolsey asked carefully, "What is your reasoning?"

John firmed his lips and lightly shook his head. "They have spies all over the galaxy for a reason. They want to be _the_ major player in Pegasus. We have proof of that."

"You're basing some of this assumption on the recent legal action taken against us by the Coalition," Woolsey surmised.

"Some," John admitted, "but this has the Genii 'feel' to it ~ 'Let someone else do the dirty work.' " John crossed his forearms on the table. "Don't underestimate Ladon Radim. He got rid of Kolya and he got rid of Cowen. He greased his way into the top position by letting other people lay their plans while he sat back and manipulated their schemes for his own use." John hardened his voice. "Outcome A, the pirates kill us and he gets his Jumper. Outcome B, we kill a few pirates to get away and he's still clean; any enmity would be directed at us, not Ladon. So, he's better off than he was ~ he's eliminated a small portion of a galactic problem and he'll just wait for another Jumper."

"If it is Ladon, he'll suspect, then use his sources to confirm that we didn't actually lose a puddlejumper," Rodney inserted.

John smirked. "Yeah, but he can't tell the hired help. And if he's too eager to try again, the pirates'll wanna know what's so special about Jumpers. He'll have to cool his heels a while."

"The pirates will still be a problem," Teyla advised. "They are vicious, and now they know something about us."

John shook his head. "Not really. Like other advanced groups they have to live off the grid to avoid the Wraith. Any intel they may pick up would be that a Jumper's just a small ship. Ladon wouldn't dare tell them otherwise to set up the job. This was a draw ~ the pirates think we're dead so we're not 'the one that got away'. There's no reason for them to pursue the matter. The Genii, on the other hand, know what a Jumper can do."

There was a long pause before Woolsey spoke. "Even if the Genii managed to gain access to Atlantis, they couldn't take advantage of the technology. Their own science isn't up to powering any part of the city and biologically, they are incapable of running it. According to Dr. Beckett's ATA research the Genii as a race don't have the gene, and in fact, can't have it. Even the gene therapy would not be successful."

"The Genii don't know that," John countered.

Woolsey nodded once in agreement. "But they are aware the gene is required to run major city systems and to fly a Jumper, which no known Genii can do. And surely their own people who were here with radiation sickness are aware that not one of them had the gene. And if Genii spies are as efficient as you believe, the information network would also know from Dr. Beckett's work with the various populations targeted by Michael that the gene is very rare here, more uncommon than in the Milky Way."

Ronon put forth his opinion. "They could take hostages who have the gene. They've done it before."

"But what would they gain as the dominant human force?" Teyla asked. "They still cannot defeat the Wraith."

"Power," Ronon responded. "It's who they are."

"You know, it makes sense," Rodney contributed. "I mean, why we don't often see gene carriers in Pegasus, unless the Ancients went off the rails, like Chaya Sar" ~ he slid a glance at John ~ "or in that run-down tower-city. Think about it. In the Milky Way the Ancients were refugees who mixed with the populations, but here they were mostly 'gardeners' overseeing the care of their seeded planets. Very poorly, I might add."

John interrupted Rodney and held up a finger on his left hand each time he made a point: "The Genii have military structure. They have nuclear capability. They have galactic ambition." He raised his eyebrows and opened his hands. "We know they want Lantean technology. To be the dominant humans in Pegasus they need Atlantis. They need a Jumper."

"You think they'll try again." Woolsey made it a question.

John returned a level stare. "I think we can't continue to turn a blind eye to whatever they're trying to do."

"Even if the Genii hired those guys to ambush us," Rodney interjected, "we still don't really know who they are."

John leaned back in his chair and smiled cynically. "I'm sure we'll run into them again," he drawled dryly. *~*

Author's Note: I wanted to write a story about the Genii... and this is not it. The idea of the Genii was another Lost Opportunity, in my opinion. Over the course of the series the Genii could have been a recurring human antagonist, a counterpoint to the main thread of the Wraith. Consider a war with a second front - Atlantis was fighting the Wraith, and in the background the Genii were doing whatever Genii do, and doing their best to undermine the Expedition's reputation and outreach efforts in the galaxy. Atlantis doesn't want to fight humans, but there would come a time when she would have to deal with the Genii. So, this story was just a...an appetizer, written in the hope that someday I will come up with a full-blown, sneaky, Genii plot.

The second reason for this story was to try to show something of Sheppard's piloting skills. We know he's an excellent pilot, and yet it all looks too easy. Perhaps the inertial dampeners, uh, dampen the effect. It doesn't seem to take the same skill to pilot a Jumper as the obvious skill required for an aerial dogfight on Earth.

The third reason for this story was to acknowledge that there are advanced peoples in Pegasus, something the series didn't have time to investigate. [I wrote 'Calculated Risk' to touch upon the existence of technologically capable societies that have found a way to avoid the Wraith.]

The fourth reason for this story was to write an adventure that didn't end with poor Sheppard in the infirmary!

Thanks for reading.


End file.
